


Proponents

by orphan_account



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Angst, Dissociation, Drug Use, Drugging, Drugs, Grief Purging, Multi, Mutual Destruction, Non-con/dubcon, Self-Destruction, Sex, Toxic Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-10 18:20:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6999385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How do the people who come into our lives affect us?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. perpetual dysphoria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> per-pet-u-al  
> adj.  
> never ending or changing
> 
> dys-pho-ri-a  
> n.  
> a state of unease or generalized dissatisfaction with life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trying to get over a writers' block by breaking victoria. i am filth asdsdfjsdfsjkl.
> 
> anyway, it's about time i go back to my angsty roots. this feels a lot like ennui, i think. i don't know. 
> 
> enjoy.

Rachel wants the world.

She wants the molten core under the earth. The pebbles, sands, rocks, the mountains. The seas and their tidal waves, the buoys and ships on the surface. The stars, the constellations, the heavens they're splayed on.

She wants them all.

It scares Victoria that she couldn't give Rachel all.

(It scares Victoria that she isn't _all_.)

Rachel walks like a goddess among men, a conqueror of the hearts in everyone's sleeves. She smiles with her teeth, pearly gravestones of a military cemetery. She laughs with her voice like a spectrum of colors. A whisper of words, a twiddle of fingers, and the world rebuilds around Rachel as quickly as she can make it collapse.

She is power: flame. The candlelight burning curious moths.

Victoria glows with blisters whenever she comes too close.

"Come," Rachel says, her hair shielding her eyes from the sunset, feather earring just barely brushing her neck. The key to Victoria's car hangs on her thumb and she twirls it, smiling with her teeth and laughing with her eyes. She takes Victoria with her hand, and Victoria comes.

(" _Come_ ," Rachel says, hair brushed back, sweat on her jaw. The bed frame creaks with age and the force of their bodies both. She takes Victoria with her tongue, and Victoria comes.)

They have class tomorrow, but Rachel's saying, "you know we can't miss a Vortex party. You're a Vortex Club official. You should be there especially," and her every word is a spear of a flag that only reminds Victoria where she belongs.

Behind Rachel, following. On the passenger seat, obeying.

"Does this mean I'm driving us back?" Victoria asks, hand on the dials of the radio. She goes through stations with a scowl, but why does she even bother? There isn't a station in this backwards town that doesn't play trucker blues.

"And stop you from drinking?" Rachel answers coyly. The laugh's in the quick breath blown out her nostrils. "You know I'd never do that to you."

"Yeah, but I'm not entirely keen with the prospect of drunk driving."

"Scared of a little DUI?"

Rachel fixes Victoria with a crinkly-eyed stare. Critical but inscrutable. She has her hands on the wheel but the car and the engine’s humming, the air conditioning’s set, but the car isn't moving yet. Victoria swallows, drawls, "dying, more like," and Rachel just grins.

"Live fast, die young."

The radio sits on a blank station. Static. Victoria won't drink tonight. The third party now that she won't, at this point. She'll drive them back.

(She doesn’t want anything bad happening to Rachel. She doesn’t want Rachel to die.)

The party's at the end of the town, where the buildings are sparse enough to make Victoria think of country sides. A little further and there'd be the sign that says, _You are now leaving Arcadia Bay, come back soon!_ and if the _come back soon_ won't make you hurl, nothing will.

Rachel drives, and the only things to see out the window are gray outlines and streetlamps, white bulbs glowing in the shadows. Arcadia Bay is even duller in the evening. Victoria really fucking hates this town.

"So how's that portfolio you were talking about coming along?" Rachel asks when they get to the underpass. The headlights spread in the darkness of the tunnel, a range of feeble gold on black. Victoria chances looks at the graffiti.

"It's not done yet," she says. She clears her throat, watches Rachel's eyes go from the road to the passenger seat. "I keep getting second thoughts. I think there are a lot more landscapes than there are portraits."

"I told you I'd help with that. You never ask me to."

Victoria almost smiles, but then she remembers who Rachel is. What she is to Rachel. She remembers how Rachel wants so badly to be a model, how many others she’s let take pictures of her in some twisted hope of getting discovered.

She remembers Arcadia Bay. She remembers the sign at the end of town.

(She imagines the sign saying something else. " _You can't leave Arcadia Bay, you're stuck here forever!_ ")

"I can do it," she says, evenly, tone and bitterness both. Rachel shifts. Victoria leans her head on the window.

"You know Kroft likes variety. And portraits. I could help you with that."

"But you never have the time."

The car slows. Heat pools in Victoria's throat. "We're not there yet," she rasps, and she feels Rachel's hesitation in the way the car jerks before picking up speed.

They don't talk about it anymore.

Rachel takes up two spaces when she parks on the driveway. The music from the party intensifies as soon as the car doors open, teenage discord and hammering bass. Rachel's already off, talking to a boy Victoria can only vaguely put a name to.

"Vic, you know Justin, right?"

Victoria's counting the reefer butts on the grass of the lawn. She steps over each one. "No," she says.

"Well, I introduced you on the last party. Last week?"

She looks up. Rachel's smiling kindly but her cheeks aren't lifted. Victoria shrugs.

"Right. I remember."

"Cool. He was just telling me this new project from the Science program guys..."

Victoria listens, but she really doesn't care.

The house has two floors, a front and rear porch, and a front and back yard, burgundy roof and cream exterior walls. It's old, Victorian, kind of, and the way it looks reminds Victoria of the quaint, pastel houses in San Francisco near Alamo Square. Victoria would think the house beautiful if not for the wasted teenagers spilling out of every crevice and the colored lights flashing on the windows. There’s smoke crawling out of the gap under door of the more modern-looking garage, a recent installation.

It's Prescott property, but really, what else don't the Prescotts already own in this town?

They’re loud enough for an Arcadia Bay police force to come knocking down the doors in riot gear. Like she said, though, what else don’t the Prescotts already own in this town?

"Let's go in," Rachel says at Victoria's right. She dabs her fingertips on Victoria's arms, taps and drags, pulls the cashmere fabric when she heads off. Victoria follows.

Rachel hands her a drink as soon as they're in. Beer on plastic cups because teenagers are classy like that. "Drink," Rachel says, voice loud enough to carry above the music. She doesn't need to shout. Victoria could hear her voice from a mile away, probably.

Victoria takes the cup, but she doesn't drink. She's driving them back.

"You gonna stay with me all night?" She's yelling, because she knows Rachel doesn't work the way she does. Rachel won't hear her voice from a mile away.

"Do you want me to?"

Rachel's grinning. Already knows the answer but looks expectant all the same. Victoria watches her down two cups of beer in no more than ten seconds. _Yes_ , Victoria wants to say, _absolutely, please, all night, always_ , but Rachel's crushing the cup in her hands and cackling. She grabs Victoria by the shoulders, pulls Victoria close for a kiss that lasts barely three seconds.

Rachel looks whole. One kiss, and Victoria's already falling apart at the seams.

"You won't leave without me, right?" Rachel asks. _No_ , Victoria wants to say, _never, of course never, I'll be right here always_.

Rachel's already moving through the crowd. The lights turn her hair red, blue, green, lilac, until she's gone.

If Victoria strains her ears enough, she can almost swear she can hear Rachel laughing. Above all this noise.

She dances. With Courtney and Logan, thrashing and grinding and yelling _what the fuck do you think you're doing_ when stray elbows bump her spine. She shares a bowl, two, three, with Hayden until she loses track of time.

She clutches her phone, waiting for vibrations. Zachary takes her out back and makes out with her behind the upturned lawn tables and chairs. He's good, as good as a person can get on weed and beer and maybe some MDMA, and he'll probably go exclusive with her. Just she say the word.

He's not enough.

She ditches him when Trevor and some other guys burst into the backyard.

She doesn't drink.

It's past midnight when Rachel comes hobbling down the staircase. She's got her phone in her hands but not enough sense to send the lousy _where ar ee_ _u_ already typed up on her screen. Victoria takes her by the arm. Rachel leans.

"D'you drink?" she asks, teasing, almost. She already knows. What's the point in answering?

They manage to go back to the car without either one of them breaking a limb. Rachel's face is flushed, flannel askew, one shoe loosely tied. The pupils of her eyes are blown, hazels rimmed red like the weeping mouths of volcanoes.

Victoria wants to hit something.

"Where'd you end up?" she asks, throat tight. Rachel's skull slides off the leather headrest.

"With the little people."

The engine starts. The glare of the headlights scares a couple of kids lounging on the path. Victoria backs the car, swears when a rock or the lifted pavement or whatever bucks the rear, wheels bouncing. Rachel watches her.

"You seem mad," she says. As simply as saying, _the sky is blue, grass is green, dirt is brown_. "I'm sorry. You're just never interested in the people I hang around with."

"Like that douchegoatee with the RV?"

"Don't call him that."

"He _is_ a douche, with a goatee."

Rachel straightens on her seat. A band of squirrels skitter across the road and Victoria slaps the horn, but doesn't slow. "You just don't know him."

"And I guess you do?"

"I say the same thing to everyone about you, you know," Rachel says. As simply as saying _this isn't right, you shouldn't be mad, we're not what you think we are._

Victoria’s going way past the speed limit.

They stop for gas. Before them, there's a jeep, and a guy, blonde, beefy, droopy eyes, sees Rachel through Victoria’s untinted windshield and waves. Rachel cocks her head to greet back. Victoria's hands on the wheel tighten, tendons making roads on flawless land.

The jeep drives away. Rachel’s head is down, eyes on her phone and thumbs slowly typing out a response (or a first text, maybe she’s texting first, who the fuck knows,) when Victoria’s right there, and Rachel really shouldn’t be doing that.

( _This isn't right, you shouldn't be mad, we're not what you think we are._ )

"Am I enough for you?" she bites out. The closest she'll get to asking am I good enough for you, _am I good enough?_

Rachel turns to face her. The pause is a _no_ enough, but she still says, "yes."

Victoria doesn't respond. She climbs off, fills the car, pays ten dollars more than she should because it’s better than not handing enough and _why bother counting, goddammit_. When she gets back, Rachel shifts on her seat. Leans toward her and whispers, "bathroom."

They swerve to park by the gendered bathrooms. Victoria gets off to help Rachel unload, but Rachel's a lot stronger than she is, even without her head on straight. Rachel’s the one who ends up leading.

(It doesn't really help that Victoria thinks she's never been strong, to begin with.)

The stall locks behind Victoria. Rachel's breath is warm on the underside of her jaw. Hot, alive, putrid with beer and cigarettes and weed. She smells like sweat, some other person's perfume, the artificial after smell of cocaine flecked and wiped off your upper lip. She feels clammy, jittery under Victoria's hands and against Victoria's front.

Rachel slides down to her knees. Victoria's skirt and underthings follow the motion. The stall door vibrates behind Victoria, frail wood trembling and cheap hinges clicking, frisking with movement. Victoria doubles over, the top of Rachel's head on her abdomen, Rachel's flannel balled in her hands.

She cries out when she comes. Rachel lets the fires of aftershocks die out before she eases back, smiling, mouth and chin shining in the fluorescence. The toilet cover closes under her palms when she slides to sit. Victoria knows what she wants.

(She wants the world. She wants everything under it, above it, all the little people on it. She wants it all.

Victoria isn’t _all._ )

The tiles hurt Victoria's knees. Rachel's nails dig, drag on her scalp. Victoria imagines blisters. Everything about Rachel burns. Like fire, like power, like potent poison under Victoria's flesh, pumped into Victoria's blood.

She’s molten on Victoria’s tongue. Nectars of hell flavored with heaven.

Rachel comes and she is beautiful. She's the flame calling for the moth. She's the snake with intricate patterns and a flashing crown, a hunger for the world and venom in its mouth.

"I need to pee," Victoria says when Rachel's done and zipped up. Rachel looks at her, and whether she buys that or not, Victoria can't tell exactly. She leaves regardless.

"I'll wait for you in the car."

A slam, the rattle of rusted hinges. Victoria waits for Rachel's footfalls to fade out before she lets herself cry. She opens the lid, clutches the toilet seat and watches the water ripple with teardrops and labored breaths. The tiles hurt her knees, _really_ hurts her knees and she only pushes down harder on the soreness.

She cries because this is what you do when you've got poison in your body. You bleed it out. She vomits because she's disgusting. She keeps taking back the poison she always bleeds out.

She's not enough. She's not good enough.

Rachel doesn't let herself be driven all the way back to Blackwell. A friend, she says, who she promised she'll spend the night with. "I've been pushing her off my schedule. I think it's only fair I finally make room," comes the explanation. As if Victoria could make herself say no even if that didn't make sense.

"What's her name?" Victoria tries asking. Rachel steps out, twists to peer back into the car, and smiles.

"No one you know. No one you'll find interesting, anyway."

She closes the door with her elbow. Victoria watches Rachel walk down the sidewalk, off toward a house with a blasted front yard and unfinished blue paint on one visible side. There's a truck parked at the driveway. Garbage.

It's 20 minutes later when Victoria gets a text. Sprawled on her couch, photos scattered on her table, a mess of folders and piled memory cards. The blinds are drawn. The only light in the room is coming from a laptop screen with a blank document window pulled up.

" _Good night, Victoria_."

There are emojis below that, smiley faces and kissy faces and plump, pink hearts. Victoria stares at them.

They’re not enough.

She swallows back a cry and shoves everything off her table. The photos fly. The memory cards fall with loud cracks, one or two are probably chipped. The light in the room dies when her laptop falls face down.

Nothing is enough. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!


	2. lucid rebellion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lu-cid  
> adj.  
> expressed clearly; easily understandable 
> 
> re-bel-lion  
> n.  
> the action or process of resisting authority, control, or convention

Nothing really makes sense. Not the faint brush of russet still on the sky where it meets the sea when it's almost 6:30. Not the music blaring from the speakers down at the beach, propped up against driftwood and rustic, broken rowboats. Not the roaches on the sand at Victoria's feet and the bent cans of beer.

Not how Rachel slips away with promises of, "I'll be right back," and still isn't there half an hour later. No texts, no calls, no answers to either from Victoria's end.

Everything's static. An explosive buzz, white noise and monochrome dots on a screen, skittering like ants. Or maggots, lumped around a corpse's eyehole and decay.

Victoria stands far. Away from the party below, suedes set where the concrete meets damp sand. Yellow is splayed where her car's headlights are aimed. The shadows of her legs are two black pillars reaching for nothing. She shifts and the pillars bend, distort like the columns of a building caving in. She imagines the temple of her body in ruins and rubble.

She lights a cigarette, because she'd like to see the temple of her body in ruins and rubble become a reality.

On her third one, a truck pulls up. Parks two spaces away from her car, and she's happy about that, because the truck's garbage and to let it come closer to her car is an insult. She looks at the truck and all she can see is a house at midnight, unfinished blues, a mess of a driveway, vomit she didn't flush in a toilet.

She sees a girl climb out. Blue hair, beanie, trashy leather jacket and all Victoria can see is Rachel’s back, walking toward the blue house and the hunk of garbage someone dares call a vehicle.

"Why ain'cha down there?" the girl asks. She talks like she's a 40 year-old man with muscles built from carrying the weight of the world. She looks at Victoria and her eyes are blue, red rimmed where the colors touch the whites. Victoria smells weed.

"You seeing that down there?" she asks, fire under her tongue and she knows why she sounds so mad. Rachel’s retreating back plays like a clip on loop in her head. "It's a mess. I'm not jumping into that."

"But you're a Blackwell kid, right? All the Blackwell kids are there. You look Vortex stuff."

"I look _Vortex stuff?_ "

"Snobby. Rich. Too high for the high road," the girl drawls. She sounds mad, but Victoria doesn't know why. Maybe for the same reason she is. ( _Rachel’s retreating back, Rachel’s retreating back_ )  "You look like you belong down there."

Victoria looks back down. Wild kids. Lost kids. Drugged, out of control kids. Maybe she _does_ belong there, she guesses. Where the fuck is Rachel? "Who are you?" she asks.

"Chloe."

"Chloe?"

"Price," the girl rolls her shoulders. Victoria looks at her face. Familiar, like she's seen her before, just with less blue and more blonde. Chloe crosses her arms over her chest. "Will always be Price."

Whatever the hell that means.

"You don't belong here, then. You're not a Blackwell kid."

Chloe fixes Victoria with a look. A glare, halfhearted because she's probably too stoned for a better one. She blinks twice. "I didn't come here to party."

Victoria takes a deep drag. She offers the cigarette to Chloe to throw. Chloe takes it to puff on instead and asks, "What's your name?"

"Victoria."

"Chase? I know you."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You know Rachel, right?" Chloe asks. Victoria's fingers twitch. "You seen her around here?"

(A house at midnight, unfinished blues, a mess of a driveway, vomit she didn't flush in a toilet.)

"I came with her," Victoria answers with a note of venom. "She told me to wait here."

Chloe looks at her. Really looks at her. "She told me to pick her up."

Recognition. Something making sense amongst the static.

"Who did you say you were again?" Victoria asks, voice starting to waver, anger swirling, surging, leaking through the cracks. She takes a step closer. Chloe's biting on the filter of the cigarette and her chin shudders.

Rachel finds the two of them like that. She's calm, but the way she inserts herself between them gives off a whiff of alarm. She looks at Victoria with a smile and her eyes are red, pupils big and black like deep wells. She takes Victoria's shoulder with one hand, Chloe's with the other. Two little people.

"Victoria, this is Chloe," Rachel starts. Victoria mutters _we've already met_ but Rachel ignores that like Victoria's just another roach under her foot on the sand. "The friend I was telling you about."

"You never told me about her, actually."

"Didn't I? Anyway, I need to go with her for tonight. Just... a change of plans. You're okay with that, right?"

Victoria looks at Rachel, then at Chloe. Chloe's face is dour, shoulders squared and standing straight, up to her full height. She's taller by two inches at most. She's angry, even beyond the blear of a high her eyes looked focus. Victoria’s angry, too, seeing shapes forming in the static.

"You could've told me that before you made me wait here. For _nothing_ ," she says, swears at herself about 50 times because her voice is cracking and Chloe looks like she might burst into tears. Rachel palms Victoria's cheek and Chloe sucks in a fierce breath.

"Listen—"

Chloe grabs Rachel's wrist. "Come on, Rach. Places to be."

"You don't get to do that," Victoria bristles. Rachel gives her a stern look, _stop, don't do this, we'll talk about it later,_ and Chloe's spitting things like, _you stay the fuck away, this isn't your business, who even the hell are you_ and Victoria has to wonder.

Who are they even mad at, here? Each other? Rachel? Themselves? The DJ who won't stop playing crappy music down at the beach?

Victoria doesn't watch them go. She goes down to the party to drink, get drunk and wasted because Rachel won't be riding with her tonight, anyway. Chloe's truck fires up like a gunshot. 

* * *

 

They see each other again at the next party. Victoria's been drinking because she kind of expected Chloe to turn up, and she really won't mind dying alone in a car crash.

"You got some nerve, Chase," Chloe says through gritted teeth. Victoria blinks and looks at the house. Burgundy roof and cream walls, Victorian, multicolored lights on the window, messed up teenagers curled and dancing and lost in every corner.

"I could say the same about you. Blackwell kid, remember? This isn't exactly where you belong."

"Rachel told me to come."

(" _Come_ ," Rachel says, head between Victoria's legs. " _Come_ ," thighs locked with Victoria's own thighs. _Come, come, come_.)

"Yeah. I drive her somewhere, you drive her back," Victoria spits. Some guy she knows as Justin has glanced over his shoulder to look at them. "Or haven't you gotten the memo yet?"

Chloe's face crumples. Victoria knows the feeling. Things are making sense. 

Chloe snatches her purse from her and Victoria shouts, _hey_ , but Chloe's already rummaging through it. She finds what she's looking for and throws the purse back to Victoria. The buckles on the handle hit Victoria in the mouth.

She hears her car chirp. A flash of headlights and Chloe opens the door, tosses the key in, slams down on the lock and throws it closed.

Victoria's shouting.

"Are you fucking crazy? How the hell am I gonna get in now? _Are you_ that _fucking stupid?_ "

Chloe sneers. Too much anger leaks out of the corners of her eyes in salt. She looks sober, smells sober save for the cigarettes on her jacket. The reds of her eyes are something else.

"You fucking—"

Victoria doesn't finish because she lunges forward. She opens her mouth. Chloe doesn't let her start and socks her in the face.

Victoria stumbles back. Justin or whoever the hell has dived forward and is yelling, " _Chloe, Chloe, dude_ ," but Chloe's on Victoria again. Blood is dribbling down Victoria's nose to her mouth. The grease on Chloe’s knuckles has stuck to her lip. Everything tastes disgusting.

" _Chloe—_ "

"Stay the fuck away, Justin!"

Chloe's nails dig into the skin of Victoria’s wrist. Victoria sees the blur of Justin's arms before she's thrown into Chloe's car like a ragdoll. Chloe locks the door, starts the car, and very nearly runs Justin over when she peels out of the driveway.

"Where are we going?" Victoria asks. The temperature dials on the dash are busted and the sounds coming off the radio are like voices howled through a tin cone. She wipes a hand down her face, stares at the red and gray that clings to her palm.

"Where no one will find you." Chloe answers.

(Beaten to death? Chloe's already started. Thrown off a ravine? Dunked in a river?)

Victoria is surprisingly okay with that.

Chloe is mumbling under her breath, knuckles white on the steering wheel. Something like _Rachel_ leaves her mouth and reaches Victoria's ears. Victoria looks out the window, asks, "have you fucked her yet?" while counting street lamps. She's not loud enough to rise above the rattle of the truck's engine, she’s sure, but somehow Chloe hears her.

"Yeah."

Chloe hits the dash with the same fist that made Victoria bleed. She swerves the truck off the road and lets it sit on the sidewalk, bed hanging out on the highway, growling engine like rapid gunfire in the night. She pounds on the steering wheel with both fists and whines, long, low, suffering, cursing between her teeth. Victoria laughs. Mucus mixes with the blood going down her nostrils.

It makes sense when they cry together.

* * *

 

They fuck like wild animals.

Or caged animals, Victoria's not entirely in the right mind to decide which.

It's rough. Victoria has burns on her wrists, from ropes or belts or chipped handcuffs. Chloe's got bite marks on her shoulders and throat and bruises on her clavicles, marks that don’t get washed off like cherry red lipstick smears.

Rachel notices Victoria’s rope burns at one point. She looks at them, brows furrowed, and glances up at Victoria with an unreadable look.

Does Chloe show off the bites and hickeys, too?

Victoria sees grooves where Rachel's brows threaten to meet and Victoria figures, _probably_ , but they never say anything about it. The sex is the same. Poison. Disgust. Static. _Not good enough_ , but they still do it, Rachel still wants her, Victoria still lets her, and it doesn’t make sense.

Things make sense around Chloe. Things like anger and hate and hot, throbbing pain. Chloe draws her clear pictures of war and of Arcadia Bay on fire with the dismal structure of her sentences, careless, riddled with expletives, like she just can't be bothered to think of what to say first.

"Don't you have any money on you?" Victoria asks irritably. Chloe pats herself down and scowls at Victoria all the way, the red of anger and embarrassment on her cheeks.

"I threw everything on gas. _Fuck_ , don't look at me like that. I might be a goddamn charity case, okay, but you aren’t any fucking better—"

Victoria tosses a couple of greens Chloe's way. Chloe's got pride, but the pride's fake, and she hasn't had the drive to be fake around Victoria since punching her in the face. That's the realest you could get with anyone. She scoops up the cash and hops out of the truck. An RV's parked near the beach road intersection.

They frequent the underpass downtown. Always in Chloe's truck, because Chloe says diesel is cheaper and Victoria kind of likes the racket of the engine when it echoes in the empty tunnel. It helps. It's distracting, disassembles thoughts before they could even form. The smell is terrible, though.

Victoria preps a bowl. Chloe lights it, and in about two refills she's blabbing again. Like she always does around Victoria. Reckless sentences about her dad, about her mom, about the many other things in her life that are so fucking wrong they've mixed up into one big vortex pulling her in.

"Rachel told me something," she says later. It always ends with Rachel. Victoria looks up, because that's the only part of the monologue she ever really cares about. "Some garbage about meeting some guy. She thinks she's got it all figured out. I don't fucking understand."

Victoria tosses the pipe out of the window. "Rachel says a lot of things," she says. "Very little of which make sense."

Chloe looks like she might hit something. She turns to Victoria instead, pins Victoria's hands against the door and lays them down on the seats, knee between Victoria's legs. The rope burns throb when Chloe digs her thumbnail down on them. Victoria bites hard on Chloe's lip.

" _Bitch_ —"

" _Motherfucker_ —"

They don't stop even when a single beam of light glares on the other end of the tunnel. Victoria yanks Chloe's head down when a motorcycle roars past, twisting away to hide her face from the open window. Chloe laughs against Victoria's pelvis, mumbles, " _prude_ ," and Victoria would've slapped her if she wasn't so close to coming.

Chloe's phone rings. A little later and Victoria's does, too. Their phones are vibrating against their sides, screens flashing with notification after notification. They're deaf, numb, and blind, and Victoria knows what this is.

Rebellion. Against Chloe's mom, Chloe's dad, the one alive and the one dead. Anarchy in the dull, boring buzz of Arcadia Bay.  An uprising against Rachel, against the two hearts beating for her under the skin of hate and rage.

They parade the marks of their resistance like idiots. Bite marks. Hickeys. Rope burns. Wounded lips.

"I'll get out of here someday," Chloe's saying. She doesn't have her jacket on and she shivers on her spot, hands wound tight around the wooden rails at the side of the road. Weathered wood on her palms, splinters. The hum of her truck behind them is loud but it's nothing compared to the tremor in Chloe's voice, loud and disorganized, carrying the aftermaths of another screaming session with her mom.

Victoria imagines Chloe's shadow on the ground is a bird, folded, springing for flight.

"Where to?"

A pause. Hesitation. "California."

"That's where Rachel wants to go."

Victoria watches Chloe's throat bob. The bird on the ground becomes wounded, wings torn, broken and hopeless in a cage. "That's what we talked about," she rasps. "I really don't know where else to hope to go."

Victoria remembers her and Rachel talking about the same thing. Suddenly there are two birds on the ground. She watches their shadows go with the sunset and balls her fists, clenches her teeth. Chloe’s talking again and all Victoria hears is anger and hate and hot, throbbing pain. Chloe's phone rings and it's Rachel, and she shows it to Victoria.

We build our own cages. We court our own captivity.

Chloe pockets her phone and Victoria thinks, _anarchy._ _Uprising. Rebellion._ Chloe takes her by the elbow, leads her back to the truck with the clarity of stained church windows in the blue-red-white of her eyes. She's seeing everything with the colors she wants, stained _anger and hate and hot, throbbing pain_ , pictures of fires and leaving and hopeless escape. But her phone rings again and she stiffens, looks at Victoria like she's asking for help. Victoria doesn't know what to say because it's her own phone that rings next.

(We build our own cages. We court our own captivity.)

They climb on the back of the truck. Lie down on the truck bed, parked at the side of the road, still roaring, tin can voices spilling from the radio just above their heads. There's a six pack wedged at the corner and it's warm, drinking it is gross, but the unmarked tablet bottle Chloe rolls toward Victoria's wrist makes it bearable. They're pretty blue things, round with little V cutouts in the center. Victoria watches the sky darken through the holes of them.

 

They make it back to Blackwell past curfew. Chloe's truck roars like a beast in the dark, echoes for yards and yards that Victoria's pretty damn sure anyone with ears in the campus is awake by now.

Victoria gets out of the truck. She does it slowly, one foot off and then the next, the walls of her skull high like cathedral ceilings. She spits and swallows. Everything is slow. Everything is dry. Everything is static except Chloe coming over to pull her back, Chloe's voice rough with _anger and hate and hot, throbbing pain_ whispering, "get the fuck down. Get away, right now."

She hides Victoria behind the next car. A ray of yellow sweeps the corner into the parking lot. Footsteps, a shadow with broad shoulders, tall and looming, and standing so close to the shadow, Victoria realizes just how frail Chloe actually looks.

" _Chloe?_ " David barks. Chloe shoots Victoria a warning look with a quick turn of her head. Victoria stays hidden.

"I was just leaving—"

"You bet your damn ass you are. What the hell are you doing on campus this late?" David's face is veined, stress lines deep and running deeper when Chloe grumbles in his direction. "You don't even come to this school anymore!"

"I was just dropping someone off. Don't get your panties all up in a twist, okay?" Anger and hate and hot, throbbing pain. Fear and disillusionment and masquerades. David advances, Chloe poises to strike but before anything could happen, she's being pushed back to her truck.

"Get your hands off me—"

"It's that Rachel girl again, isn't it? Didn't I tell you not to make friends with those Vortex assholes? Your mom's—"

"You don't get to say what my mom thinks about this!"

David shoves Chloe into the open door of the truck. There's a thud, the top of a skull slamming somewhere solid and David's face pales, looks apologetic before he wills it back to stone. "Go back home," he growls, and Victoria doesn't recognize the Chloe who obediently sits herself down on the driver's seat. "I'm telling your mother about this. Don't think you're still getting out of the house after this. Why do you always have to make things so hard for your mom?"

Chloe's eyes are flames. Stained church windows. Little beads of salt at the corners. "Fuck you, David."

"Don't talk to me that way—"

The truck growls at David like a hulking dog, a weapon of rebellion. An illusion to hide away the fear. Chloe drives off without another look back.

Victoria doesn't hear from her the same night. When she gets a text, it's from Rachel. 

" _We shouldn't see each other anymore. I met a guy ..._ "

Rachel's phone is turned off. Victoria's calls won't come through. 

The consequences of rebellion. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's chloe.  
> now to decide who's next. 
> 
> thanks for reading!


	3. grotesque affection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> gro-tesque  
> adj.  
> repulsively ugly or distorted 
> 
> affection  
> n.  
> a feeling of liking or attachment toward someone or something

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi pal
> 
> listen, just in case you missed the new tags, here are the chapter warnings. **non-con/dubcon, drugging, purging (due to grief/loss,) mild suicidal undertones, and dissociative behavior**
> 
> the drugging follows canon, as this chapter is kate's. please heed the warnings

Rachel's left.

She's packed her clothes, her flags, her smiles with her teeth like pearly gravestones of a military cemetery, her voice like a wide spectrum of colors. She's gone with her whispers and her twiddling fingers and there's no one to rebuild the world around Victoria that's collapsed.

"She's coming back," Chloe says. Certain in all the bobs of her throat, so damn positive with the bags under her eyes and cracks of her lips, the restless flexing of her hands on the steering wheel. "I'm telling you, Rachel's coming back. This is her thing, you know? Drama. She likes giving people something to talk about."

Chloe's eyes are embers, shining with a rebel's rage and hope/denial, looking on at the roads of Arcadia Bay like she's waiting for everything to spontaneously combust. She's still looking at the world with the colors she likes. Victoria's stopped seeing through Chloe's colored windows since the night David caught her on campus.

"She's not," Victoria whispers. Chloe looks at her like she just spat all over the earth of her dad's grave. "She's not coming back," Victoria repeats with surprising hardness, for Chloe's benefit rather than her own. Chloe scowls but it's halfhearted. She knows it, too. She's lying to herself because she's a rebel enough to not accept the truth.

Hope/denial.

"She's coming back, Vic."

"She isn't. I got the text. She's with that guy, whoever he is. She's out of Arcadia Bay now and that's all she ever wanted. She's not coming back."

Chloe's face scrunches. On the steering wheel her hands move, a slight shift and tendons showing through the skin. The bones of her knuckles spasm. Victoria's mind whirs back to a moment at a party. A punch thrown, blood on her mouth and grease stuck to her lips, the two of them shouting and sparking a rebellion.

"She'll come back," Chloe insists stiffly. _Anger and hate and hot, throbbing pain_ and to Victoria, they're nothing new. Tin can voices shriek on the radio and without turning the damn volume down, Chloe continues, "she won't just leave without me."

And something about that infuriates Victoria so viciously (without _me_ , without _me_ , without _Chloe_ ) that she throws open the passenger door and shouts, "stop the truck."

Chloe hits the brakes ( _"Victoria, what the fuck?"_ ) Victoria gets off without further fanfare and turns around to walk the 20 minutes back to Blackwell. Neither of them look back.

Victoria doesn't see Chloe again until a few days later. In the dark, the bedside clock's hour hand somewhere between one and two, gnarled branches tapping on the glass of her window. Moonlight is shining through and falls flat on her door. She stares forward. Every blink is an illusion of the shadows on the doorknob, twitching like someone is jiggling it from the other side.

(Rachel opens the door a crack to stick her head in and smiles with all the fondness of flowers to spring. She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, says something like, _can I come in_ or _did I wake you_ or _I just want to spend the night with you_.)

Victoria rubs her eyes. Forgot to draw the blinds shut again.

It's when she gets up, grabs the string, and peers out the window that she sees Chloe there. Down on the courtyard, running for her life. Swaying like she's drunk: flailing, stumbling, struggling to put as much distance as she can between her and the dormitory building.

Chloe must see her because she pauses. Victoria quickly pulls the blinds shut.

The texts come immediately. Babbling from a scattered brain, incoherence from fingers too uncoordinated to type properly: _Help_ and _Drug_ and something like _Pictures_.

Victoria wonders briefly about who Chloe's getting her fix from now. She cuts herself off because she realizes she shouldn't care.

She discards her sim card. They don't need each other anymore. Everything's in rubble. All Victoria has left is a message that says _we shouldn't see each other anymore, I met a guy_ that's dated almost two weeks ago and a more recent string of texts with _Help_ and _Drug_ and something like _Pictures_.

Arcadia Bay is hollow, Rachel Amber is gone.

They got what they wanted. Anarchy.

* * *

 

Victoria watches herself go through every day. A specter floating above herself, seeing herself talk to people, knock people down, toy with them on the palm of her hand, taking pictures of light and dark and everything in between.

She watches herself roam the first floor of the dormitories and shift on the space outside Nathan's room. Watches herself knock, tentatively, whispering into the gap at the sides of the door like she's cooing into the ears of a beast.

"Nathan?"

There's a shuffle on the other side, muffled. Something falls and shatters, louder. Victoria watches herself flinch but she doesn't really feel anything.

What does she even feel these days?

" _What do you want?_ "

"It's me, Victo—"

" _What do you_ want?" Nathan repeats fiercely. Victoria sees images in her head. Spilled pill bottles. Crushed tablets under Nathan's shoe. Tousled hair and clammy palms, sweat on his temple, his stomach curved inward dangerously because he hasn't eaten anything. He slams on the door from the other side. With his fist? His knee? His skull?

Victoria wants to phase through the door, just to see where Nathan's bleeding from this time.

"I just wanted to talk," she says. She thinks about the timidness in her voice while she watches herself there, one hand on the doorknob, weight draped on the door like she has no bones. She doesn't feel like she has bones. "Can I come in?"

" _We're talking through the door right now._ "

Victoria shuts her eyes. She sighs. "I haven't seen you around campus for days."

Shuffling. The crumple of papers with the stomp of a weight. " _I've been around but I'm busy. I've been doing a lot._ "

"Without me?"

" _Don't give me that. You've been busy yourself_ ," Nathan rasps. Victoria wonders if that's true. She goes through classes, maintains the height above her peers, wanders around in a body that's too hollow and feels like it'll float away any given second.

She watched herself vomit last night after thinking about Rachel. After touching herself. Poison.

"I'm worried about you," she says quietly. She keeps her hand on the knob, forehead falling on the chaffed surface of the door. There's no shifting on the other side. Maybe Nathan is doing the same, leaned helplessly on the door, too. "You've been avoiding everyone. The Club's been asking a lot. I don't know what to tell them."

Nathan pauses to breathe, says, " _tell 'em to mind their own business_ ," except there's no bite to it. Victoria feels the knob shudder and she tries to twist it, but it doesn't budge. He's locked the door. " _Vic, listen, I'll... get out when I want to, alright? I'll call you._ "

"Okay. I'll give you your space."

" _Okay_."

Victoria doesn't leave. She doesn't hear movement. Nathan isn't leaving either. "Hey, Nate?"

" _Yeah?_ "

Victoria feels it this time. The shake of her breaths when she draws one in, and then out. The cold of the knob on her hand. The rattle of her heart and her pulse, ringing in her ears, deafening. The hole in her gut, deep, empty, endless. She closes her eyes.

"Do you know where Rachel's gone?"

Silence on the other side. Victoria hangs onto the knob like it's life. Like it's hope. Like it's the only tangible thing in the world that's left for her. 

" _No_."

Victoria floats away. She watches from the ceiling as her body pushes off Nathan's door to hobble down the hall.

* * *

 

She takes pictures. Or, watches herself take pictures. Of the roof from the courtyard, silhouetted. She thinks of eyes, half lidded, sparkling and blown and caked with eyeliner and mascara. She thinks of hazels.

She sees missing person posters on the campus bulletin board, watches herself take each one down, crumpling them, tossing them in the trash. She does it again the next day when new ones get tacked.

Rachel Amber isn't missing. Rachel Amber went away.

She takes more pictures of the rooftop from the courtyard. Thinks of half-lidded eyes and make-up and mascara and turns one shot in for a Photography assignment. Jefferson says her photos lack soul.

Kate Marsh's photos have soul. They're pictures of light and fur and smiling people, so bright Victoria's first thought is that maybe she painted over them with pastel watercolors.

Jefferson gives Kate a grade higher than Victoria's. Victoria hates her.

Hate hate hate.

She watches herself scrawl something on Kate's slate after class. _Will suck cock for Jesus_. Kate's door opens just as she's walking away. She listens over her own shoulder while she tells Taylor and Courtney and the three of them laugh.

Why do they laugh?

(What does she even feel these days?

 _Hate hate hate._ )

She climbs up to the roof late one night and peers down at the courtyard. For a moment, she thinks she sees herself down there, taking pictures of a silhouetted peak while thinking of hooded hazels and dark mascara.

But she blinks, and the image changes, and she likes this one better. Broken. Battered. Bleeding. She climbs on the ledge. The wind doesn't touch her. The moon doesn't see her. She's floating, watching over her own shoulder. The shadows of her legs cast behind her are the pillars of the temple of her body, ready to lie in ruin and rubble.

Maybe she takes a step forward. She doesn't know, doesn't feel it, but what she feels is a hand around her wrist and a palm on her shoulder, a whisper saying, "don't do it, don't do this."

She turns around and Kate is there, touched by the wind and seen by the moon. Her eyes are round, frightened, pleading, the hand around Victoria's wrist pale and shaking. Kate blinks, and Victoria sees soul. In her eyes, in her touch, in the photos Jefferson much better prefers rather than her own.

_Hate hate hate._

"Don't touch me," she mumbles, snatching her hand away. Kate folds into herself.

"Please come down."

And Victoria blinks, has to wonder again, when Kate gently takes her hand and leads her back down to the dorms.

What does she even feel these days?

Kate's hand, warm. Kate's eyes, glowing. 

* * *

 

Victoria stops watching herself.

She talks to people, knocks people down, toys with them on the palm of her hand, takes pictures of light and dark and everything in between, and she hears, feels, sees, smells everything.

She hears the crack in Courtney's voice when she glares Courtney down. Feels the fabric of Taylor's sleeve as they roam the halls. Sees the colors of everyone's hair, blonde and black and deeper brown. Smells the air in the gymnasium, detergent and sweat and someone spraying Axe.

She hears, feels, sees, smells Kate. The music in her voice, like the cooing whine of her violin. The warmth of her hand, the dusty blonde of her hair, the lingering smell of tea and Rosemary and old books.

Kate rubs her back while she vomits in the dorms' restroom. She grasps the back of Victoria's neck and kneels, frowning, pale, asking, "do you want anything? Water?"

And Victoria wonders again, what does she even feel these days?

Hopeless, needy, pitiful. Kate moves to stand to fetch her that stupid water and Victoria grabs her shirt, pulls her back down with a quiet, "don't leave, please, don't leave."

Kate stays. She wipes Victoria's eyes when she cries.

(What does she even feel these days?

Love love love.) 

* * *

 

Kate plays for Victoria, sometimes. When everyone on their floor has gone and they have all the space they could possibly need. Kate tells her about the music, pieces from musicians like Antonin Dvorak and Johannes Brahms and Victoria cares enough to see Kate smiling that she listens.

She wants to be an illustrator, she says. Drawing children's books with bunnies and cats and mice that could talk. Victoria asks, "why do the characters need to be animals?"

"Because they're for kids! Kids like cute animals, don't they?"

"How about for those that don't?"

Kate's tongue makes a dent on her cheek. Victoria averts her eyes, looks back down at the samples of drawings on Kate's notebook.

"Then I'll draw tigers. Or apes. Or, I don't know—"

"Monsters?"

Victoria closes the sketchbook. She looks up, and Kate is looking at her above the rim of her teacup. It's the blend Victoria got for her the other day. Kate takes a sip and shrugs. "There won't be monsters in my books, Victoria."

"Why not?"

"Monsters aren't good for little kids," she says with a finality so childish, Victoria actually laughs. Kate whimpers, fidgets. "Don't laugh. You shouldn't teach kids that there are monsters. You should teach them there are different kinds of animals, and different kinds of people, but there's no such thing as monsters."

Victoria wants to tell Kate, _no_. Wants to tell her, _you're wrong, there are monsters, they hide in step dads that hit their kids and pretty girls with half-lidded eyes, they hide in parents who want a perfect daughter. They hide in dealers, in lost rebels, they hide in happiness that doesn't last._

But Victoria is feeling so much at this moment, that she just says, "you're right."

( _Love love love._ ) 

They go through the weeks together, in Kate's room, in blind corners, in empty hallways, and Victoria feels _love love love._

* * *

 

"Kate is here."

Victoria glances up. She blinks, bleary-eyed and dizzy, drifting in a limbo of drunk and high and she doesn't see until Nathan grabs the back of her skull to turn it in the right direction.

Kate pauses when she sees Victoria. Victoria excuses herself, and she ignores it when someone asks, "what, you're friends with the bible thumper?" because she's feeling so much. She's feeling so much _love love love_ to bother. 

"You came," she slurs. She thinks she must smell pretty bad, weed and beer and sweat, but Kate doesn't move away. She smiles, and in Victoria's head something's screaming _love love love._

"You told me to," Kate says kindly. She shrugs. Victoria realizes how lost she must feel. How lost she looks. She's a body with a soul, bright and pure and full of _love love love._ She doesn't belong here. Victoria leads her away, back out into the courtyard where it's empty and cold and Kate's hand burns to hold.

"Victoria, are you okay? I think you need to lie down."

"I'm fine," Victoria says. Kate holds her shoulder, palm rubbing in soothing circles and Victoria feels like she'll explode. Explode with so much _love love love_ that she pulls Kate close and kisses her.

( _Love love love_.)

Kate stiffens. She pushes Victoria away, gently, slowly, timid just like Kate is always and Victoria is wondering why. _Why why why._

"Don't you? ..." Victoria asks, voice so small she hates it. Kate is pale and stammering.

"I just... I don't... I..."

Kate says _I'm sorry_ , and Victoria doesn't hear her because something in her chest twitches, grimaces, slithers to her gut. It whispers, _hate hate hate_ , and Victoria wants to vomit.

"V—Victoria, I—"

"Forget it."

Victoria marches back into the auditorium. Her hands are shaking, her head is pounding, the music is too fucking loud and everyone's bumping into her but she's hearing _hate_ , she's feeling _hate_.

"What happened?" Nathan asks when she comes back. She plops down, pretends she doesn't hear him and he must be drunk enough because he doesn't ask again.

But it's not important, because Kate follows and she's glowing with so much _love love love_ that Victoria wants to tear herself apart to show the _hate hate hate._

"Victoria—"

"Vic, you're friends with her?" Nathan sputters. Behind Victoria, people laugh. Victoria clenches her fist. She looks at Kate, rolls her shoulders, and smiles. 

"Sure. Give her a drink, Nate."

Kate flinches. "I—I don't really—"

"Drink, Kate," and Victoria feels so proud of herself, because Kate stares at her and she must see it. The _hate hate hate._

"I just wanted to—"

"Drink," Nathan repeats. Victoria hears something in his voice, the smile of something she can't put her finger on. She looks at Nathan, and Nathan smiles. She knows he's got the good shit. He's all about that good shit. She looks at the drink in Kate's hand. 

She stares at Kate. Kate drinks.

And drinks.

And drinks.

Victoria floats away. 

* * *

 

They're shouting. They're cheering Kate on, and Victoria watches herself laugh like she's crying while she holds her phone up to film the whole thing.

Kate's kissing someone again and someone yells, " _you go, Kate!_ " Victoria wants to punch whoever it is. She wants this to stop, to go on, to cry but she's laughing too hard and Kate doesn't look like she's stopping anyway. She couldn't have Kate, now she's giving Kate away. 

Another boy catches her when she falls sideways. Victoria wants this to stop. To go on. _To stop. To go on._

Kate is so pale, so blank, so lost, and Victoria wants to touch her because she's still so beautiful.

( _Stop/go on/stop/go on_.)

Kate looks at Victoria. Unseeing, saliva on her chin and mouth shining. She stumbles forward, the light of her _love love love_ drowning. Victoria wants to catch her but Nathan's already got her. She wants to hold Kate and say, _you're wrong, there are monsters everywhere, in drunk high school kids and broken girls who just want to be loved._

( _Love/hate/love/hate/love/hate_.)

"Bitch is wasted," Nathan observes. He lays Kate down on the couch and stares. There's a strange focus in his eyes that Victoria's only ever seen when he's taking photos. He leans down, peels back Kate's eyelid, and Victoria watches herself walk away with the video in her hand and _hate hate hate._

( _Love/hate/love/hate._ )

Victoria watches the video the next morning. So many boys, so little of Kate and so little _love love love._

( _Love/hate._ )

She sets up the website and uploads the whole thing. When she wanders to the bathroom to vomit, Kate is already there. Hunched over a toilet, crying, puking, radiating _hate hate hate._

Kate doesn't see her. Victoria watches herself turn around and leave.

What does she even feel these days? 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!


End file.
